We'll Be Kings In Another Life
by adele4
Summary: Rishid/Malik/Bakura/Ryou. A while after the ceremonial duel, Malik is peacefully living in Japan with Rishid when, on a rainy spring day, a newly embodied former ring spirit waltzes into his bedroom; and that's just the start.


_Malik x Rishid x Yami Bakura x Bakura Ryou, as well as pairings and threesomes between them, several of them established. Written for the wildcard round at the livejournal community ygo-rare-pair. Set post-series. The Bakurae's relationship is based on manga canon.  
>Warnings for incest, references to past dubious consent, and possibly present dub con. Also, swearing, bondage, mention of sex (but nothing graphic).<em>

* * *

><p>We'll Be Kings In Another Life<p>

* * *

><p>"How the hell did you get in here?" was the first thing Malik said upon seeing the thief.<p>

He sat up on the large double bed on which he'd been lounging even as he spoke. He might have asked: how are you even alive; or, what happened to you; or even: get lost, asshole. But this happened to be his first thought; if Bakura had broken his lock!...

"Your servant let me in," Bakura answered in a bored tone of voice, leaning against the doorframe.

"Brother," Malik corrected absently, appeased; he looked the thief over: his long white hair looked ruffled and like it hadn't been washed or brushed in a while; the long black coat too seemed rumpled and slept in; there were white marks, like from chalk, on its left side, and shoes and jeans too looked worn. No ring. Of course. Malik wondered: had it been the other one who'd taken care of such mundane things as keeping a tidy appearance? "Are you _alone_?" he asked.

Bakura cocked his head to the side; he seemed to think for a moment.

"Yes," he said.

Malik slowly stood up; he _should_ probably tell the thief to get lost; he _was_ an asshole, and of angry, world-destroying proportions. But his presence brought back very vivid memories of Battle City, the parts he'd tried to forget about, the pleasant parts: unchecked anger and power, thrown at someone who could match them, and turned to pleasure; and someone just as hateful as their opponent standing by his shoulder when he'd fought his inner battle.

They'd lost that game, admittedly; but having Bakura there hadn't been the bad part.

Bakura looked guarded when Malik walked up to him; that was new; he'd been utterly, arrogantly careless of his own well-being all this time. Look what mortality can do to you, Malik thought meanly.

"That's going to be interesting," he said, stopping in front of the thief; the latter couldn't be quite as far from a bath or a change of clothes as he looked; Bakura mainly smelled of rain.

* * *

><p>It had become a sort of ritual, over time; after they'd eaten and Rishid had done the dishes, they would stand across of each other in the dark kitchen, their heads together, and simply talk. Malik liked these moments: they'd never talked like that in the past; his every word, to Rishid, over the years, it felt, had been a command, even when he hadn't been aware of it at the time himself. And there was so much that <em>hadn't<em>changed: even though Rishid called him Malik now, not "master", even though Rishid had come to his battlefield for him and made a demand of him as well, contained in his very confidence that he could forsake the darkest part of his soul, his deference and his devotion were the same as they always had been. And it was hard not to take and take and take when the other wanted nothing more than give.

So they stood with each other, like this, in the evening, foreheads bumping together, hands joined, a whiff of washing oil between them that Malik had come to like, and talked about the past day and the next, chores to divide, small decisions to make, worries to discuss. He needed only ask and Rishid would defer to him in anything, but somehow, Malik had found a setting where the thought had almost lost its trill, though not its childish comfort; and if Rishid would yield in anything, in some things he would argue, and in all, almost, speak up. In these moments Malik felt the fear of himself fall off him, and the desire for power and now unfocused revenge and for _more_life that still boiled beneath his skin ebb away for a few minutes.

"You let him in," he murmured quietly, when Rishid mentioned his misgivings about the thief's presence.

"I thought you would want to see him," Rishid murmured back in the same tone.

It was in mid-spring, and though it had rained in the afternoon, it had cleared in the evening, and the kitchen was not yet completely dark; but under the shadow of their own bodies, he could not make out Rishid's face. In his voice, he could find no hint of jealousy or resentment, though he must know of his unfaithfulness; guessed at it the very moment he opened the door, perhaps.

"I did," Malik admitted. "He's – I'd like him to stay."

"Do you know why he's here?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere else to go."

There was the former host, of course; Malik had asked about that, just to make sure the cosmic forces that had brought back Bakura hadn't taken him in exchange. But then, the other Bakura was a fickly ally. Funny to think that between the two of them, he'd been the steady one.

"He could be planning something."

"He's always planning something," Malik said, though, in truth, he wasn't sure; in bed, at least, Bakura had seemed unchanged; but still, this had to be very new for him. "It doesn't matter. I won't –" He briefly untangled their hands to make a wide gesture to signify all the things he wouldn't do.

Rishid sighed.

"Where will he stay?" His voice was neutral; Malik glanced up from their fingers at his eyes, but they were shadowed by his face.

"There's the couch," he said, something rough entering his voice; he raised his head. He wasn't good at this, but... "You know I love you, right?"

He gave Rishid no time to answer and instead moved to kiss him, very softly, the taller man's lips strong and yielding against his, his tongue drawing in against his own, pushing, insisting; a hand had come up to cup his face.

Suddenly, the kiss was broken, and Rishid was briskly turning to the side; Malik looked up to see Bakura stand in the open door.

* * *

><p>"Your <em>brother<em>, huh?" the thief asked when they lied on opposite sides of the couch, feet entangled, partly undressed and hands still sticky with come; there was something so wonderfully uncomplicated about sex with Bakura, though that probably was somehow very, very wrong.

"Oh, shut up," Malik snapped; but he was feeling careless and conciliating with the afterglow and couldn't bring up much ire or embarrassment.

Bakura laughed.

"Is he going to murder me in my sleep then?" he asked.

Malik shook his head.

"You've become paranoid about dying, have you?"

There was no response; Malik pushed himself up by the elbows to get a look at Bakura's face; the thief was frowning at the ceiling.

"I'm going to kill Yuugi," he said.

Malik lied back down.

"You know that now that you told me that, I'm going to tell him you're here, right?" He started at a sudden thought that, oddly, he hadn't had before that. "Is the pharaoh back too?"

"Why would he be?" Bakura snarled, and Malik could feel his whole body tense where they touched. "_I_ escaped Ammut's clutches. _He_won his right to his promised afterlife." There was a pause; Malik waited, ready for the tension to fade or explode; after a moment, Bakura's body relaxed against his again. "He's at the other end of the country anyway," he added, presumably talking about Yuugi.

"Hm," Malik said; he felt too dozy to think about all this now; "I'm going to bed."

Despite his slightly groggy state, he could feel Bakura's eyes following him all the way to the door.

* * *

><p>Bakura hadn't eaten with them last night, instead dozing away in the bedroom; they woke him up for breakfast, however, as they needed the couch, and breakfast was tense. The thief stared at Rishid the whole time, through narrowed, curious eyes. Rishid, Malik found, bore with it very well, and reacted not at all. They spoke very little, and only about practical things; Bakura offered to buy groceries; in his opinion, they had no eatable food in the house, and he was going to remedy that.<p>

They cleared away the dished in equal silence; but, upon walking back into the kitchen last, Malik found the other two almost nose to nose, and poised as if for battle: Bakura provocatively relaxed, back bend backwards, Rishid towering above him.

"– him," he could just hear Bakura say, before the thief fell silent upon his entrance.

"What are you two doing?" Malik asked, even as he carefully put the plate in his hand down. He glared at Bakura.

"Nothing," Bakura said; his voice was low and silky as at his evilest; Malik had learned to rather like it, usually, but, damn.

"Rishid?" he said, without ceasing to look at Bakura; his voice was command enough, he knew that well.

"He asked me whether I would have given you up for the pharaoh's glory," Rishid said, his voice even; Bakura, who had been returning Malik's angry glare, turned to stare at Rishid; Malik had not often seen him so openly startled; it was almost funny.

Actually, there was something else there that was almost funny, if he didn't have to begin to wonder if _Bakura_ was going to kill _Rishid_in his sleep, at his rate; if Malik's experience with large groups of people looking up to him had been better in the past, he might be flattered now.

"Are you _jealous_?" he asked Bakura; of course, Bakura might just be making sure that he wasn't going to lose his new home, but, seriously? He could just have ignored Rishid; he'd done it in the past.

Bakura shifted and leant sideways against the counter, a little away from Rishid; he'd done something to the hair; it still looked tussled, but artily so, giving him the familiar air of danger. Malik could taste a kind of want on his tongue in response, not merely for sex, but more; yet Rishid was more important than everything else.

"Why would you even be?" Malik added, irritated. "We've been in a threesome before."

Something lit up in Bakura's eyes at that.

"Are we in a threesome _now_?" he asked; his eyes wandered over to Rishid, sparkling and asserting.

"Oh, for –" Malik threw up his arms. "I'm going to work now."

But he found a quiet moment a few minutes later, when Rishid had left to their bedroom, to drag Bakura round a corner, by their entrance door, throwing him against the wall.

"He would _not_ have given me up, not for anyone or anything," he hissed, quietly, not wanting Rishid to hear; "and if you do anything to him, I will dedicate my _life_to hunting you down."

Bakura wretched his arm free roughly and leant back against the wall.

"Because that worked out so well for you last time," he taunted.

"Last time I lost Rishid," Malik said, "I _killed_ you."

He was breathing heavily now. He'd never done this before, never, claimed the dark entity's actions as his own; but if that was the way to ensure Rishid's safety... And maybe he _had _to come to terms with this; that that had been him, too, who wanted nothing but see the world burn, no matter how much the rest of him had hated and fought it.

But maybe that was one reason more to keep Bakura around and threaten him instead of throwing him out; the dark entity had loathed Rishid more than anything for the restraint it put on him; but Bakura even it had found entertaining.

"Fine," Bakura said, quietly as well; the look he gave him seemed searching. "I wasn't going to attack your boyfriend, and I won't." He pushed himself off the wall and bumped against him when he walked past, out of the corner. "Where are you going?"

Malik allowed himself to relax.

"Work. Apprenticeship," he corrected; at Bakura's arched eyebrow, he explained, a tad defensive: "I'm learning to be a motorbike mechanic." He braced himself for mockery – this was a far cry from ruling the world as pharaoh – but Bakura's stare was completely blank. "Uh, you do know what that is?"

"You repair... motorbikes," Bakura said slowly.

"I'm learning to," Malik confirmed, a little unsettled by Bakura's reaction, and by the earlier conversation still.

Future comment was cut short when Rishid entered the room; Bakura turned, started, and then stared at Rishid's tie.

* * *

><p>"So, what are you planning on contributing to this household?" Malik asked later, when they were sitting around the low table, he and Rishid on the couch, Bakura on the too high chair, with salads and bread and, in Bakura's case, unhealthy amounts of bacon. "What did you do all day anyway?"<p>

"Walked around," Bakura said vaguely. "Stole new clothes."

"You can actually steal? Without the magic?"

"_Yes_. And my host," Bakura said with a grin, "looks amazingly innocent."

Malik shook his head.

"That... doesn't explain anything anymore," he said.

"You know what I mean," Bakura snapped; Malik rather thought that he had forgotten he wasn't inhabiting another person anymore. "I'm good at – acting."

"That could be useful in a great number of circumstances," Rishid commented, his voice polite and blank; the other two turned to look at him, equally taken aback.

"Yes," Bakura said, after a moment of silence, and went back to looking at Rishid curiously for the rest of the evening.

* * *

><p>"Anything you want," Rishid had said, and maybe Malik should have taken it to mean: no. But Rishid had kissed his jaw, his neck, his shoulder through the fabric of his dirty work-shirt, with such devotion and reverence as if to say: "anything that gives you pleasure will give me pleasure; anything that is part of you I want" – because he'd said those things before; and he'd said no before, though never beyond a reiteration, in their quiet conferences in the kitchen; and this tore at him, Rishid's carefully blank stares, Bakura's odd looks when they left him in the evening, the silences that always settled in when they happened to come together in the morning or at dinnertime...<p>

And there were much less generous thoughts, of want and desire and simple curiosity. He'd had those for an even longer time.

Rishid he had asked; Bakura he simply ambushed Sunday afternoon, when he came out of the shower with a towel draped around his waist, and dragged to the bedroom.

"Come," he added, for good measure; Bakura followed.

"Really?" he said. "What changed your mind?"

"Were you serious?" Malik threw back, even as he pushed the bedroom door open.

Bakura shrugged and pushed past him, inside the room, and stopped to take in the sigh of Rishid stretched out on the bed in nothing but a dark purple dressing gown.

Malik left him standing there, and went to crawl unto the bed, biting down the nervousness that he was usually so free of, for different reasons, when he was with only either of them. He leant over Rishid's whole body and went to kiss him, and smiled against his lips when he felt Bakura's hands on his back, and then his lips at the base of his neck. But when Bakura let himself fall onto the bed next to Rishid and unceremoniously struck his tongue into Rishid's ear, Malik pushed him away.

"No," he said; he pushed himself between them, Rishid obligingly shifting to the edge of the bed to free space for him, and turned to face Bakura. "No."

Bakura glared at him, and when he raised a hand to Malik's neck, it was to dig in his nails; but he offered no resistance when despite, or maybe because of this, Malik pushed their bodies snug together while Rishid draped over his back.

* * *

><p>After, Malik lied boneless and sated between them, Bakura popped up on one elbow on one side, Rishid rolled onto his side on the other, looking at him with familiar wonder.<p>

"I've worked my whole life to destroy what your people spent generations protecting," Bakura said, looking over his head at Rishid. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"No," Rishid said after a moment of silence, laying a hand on Malik's side; Malik smirked up at the thief.

"I'm the reason he had to be locked away and his memory guarded in the first place," Bakura tried.

The hand on his side stiffened, and Rishid raised his head to look at the thief. He said nothing.

"We _know_ the whole story," Malik said, though in truth, he had no idea of much of the man currently by his side was the ancient thief and how much the dark god he'd served; he waited until Bakura was looking at him again. "And I said _no_, and I _mean_it."

"We're not to _speak _to each other?" Bakura arched an eyebrow at him.

"You know what I mean," Malik snapped: you're not to search for levers and weak points. Not that it'll _work_.

But he did realise, now, that this was highly unlikely to actually make things any easier between the three of them; but, as he lied there, Rishid's hand on his bare stomach and his breath ticking his ear, Bakura sprawled out next to him, eyes boring into his, Malik found it very hard to feel any regret.

* * *

><p>His first words, upon finding a furious looking Bakura outside the door, with a backpack in his hand and his finger still on the bell were: "Have you lost your keys, you moron?"<p>

His voice trailed off at the last word when reality caught up with him; to his defence, he'd had a hard day, and part of him had never fully processed their separateness.

The visitor pushed past him and into the room without sparing him a glance, throwing the bag to the floor on the way, went to the couch where Bakura was currently lounging, grabbed the thief by his shirt and screamed at him: "_You!_"

Malik stared as Bakura let himself be hauled up, a puzzled look on his face, his mirror image yelling at him: "You said you'd _never leave_! You said you were _mine_!"

Truth be told, Malik had always suspected Bakura's host of being a little insane, and he could hardly blame him, with Bakura living in his head: the spirit was hardly the kind of tenant who was careful not to ruin the wallpaper and didn't move the furniture around. But he'd always taken him for the _quiet _kind of insane.

Slowly recollecting himself, Bakura took hold of the other one's wrists and wrenched them away.

"You knew I was lying," he said.

"I took care of you when you –" He gestured at Bakura with his chin; he was no longer yelling, his voice breaking every few words. "– I made the fucking model for you, what else did you _want_?" He struggled to free his hands; Bakura held on.

"I could have killed you and taken your place," he said, his voice colder than Malik had heard it in a while; he'd almost forgotten, by getting used to it, that Bakura's malice was different when directed at him; he felt guilty at the thrill that went through him at the realisation.

"Uh, do you two want to be alone?" he threw in.

They both turned to look at him; Bakura let go of his ex-host's wrists, and the latter let his arms hang to his sides.

"Hello Malik," other Bakura said almost demurely; then he added, in the same voice: "You could have told me that he's here."

"To be honest, I thought he was because you threw him out."

Bakura snorted, and other Bakura turned to glare at him.

"I guess I should have," he said.

"You should go home," Bakura said.

Malik thought that he didn't look like he meant "you should go home"; he rather looked like he wanted to eat up his mirror image starting with the nose; more so, even, than Malik remembered. But then, in the host's soulroom, there had been no need for it; they'd been inside other Bakura, surrounded by him, breathing him in, and able to repaint his soul like a blank canvas. Malik felt the thrill of that, too, but repressed it; he longed for lost power every day; he'd learned to deal.

"I'm not leaving," other Bakura said, though his tone was back to the usual politeness. "You can't just do this to me and then _leave_."

"This is my apartment, you know," Malik thought useful to point out. "You don't even pay rent."

"Do what you want, then," Bakura said, and he didn't look like he meant that, either. Malik couldn't say he understood other Bakura; _he_liked Bakura's attention more than was sensible, but if the thief ever looked at him like he did as his former host even as he said that, he'd run in a heartbeat.

* * *

><p>"So," said Malik, awkwardly, when Bakura had left for the kitchen; how did being used by megalomaniacs turn out for you, on the long run? "How are you?"<p>

"I'm well, thank you," other Bakura said politely. "How are you? It's good to see you again."

"Uh, doing great," said Malik. If my body-snatching thief turned up again, I would be at him with a knife. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Thank you." He did, sitting on the edge of the couch as if afraid to touch too much fabric. "How is your family?"

"They're fine. I'm living with Rishid, you'll see him soon. And Isis is doing well."

They went on like that for a little while, going over Rishid's secretarial job and Isis' work for the Egyptian government and whether she was likely to ever come in contact with Bakura's father, Bakura's studies and Malik's apprenticeship, before Bakura broke the pattern and said, looking down at his hands:

"I – missed you, you know."

"Uhm," Malik said.

He'd missed him too; there had been all these moments, with the thief, where he'd wished he could reach out and find him on his other side. Maybe that was the real reason why he'd dragged them into this odd three-way, even though he was not at all ready to share Rishid, and most likely never would be. And maybe _that_was why he'd hooked up with his brother in the first place; the thought of there ever being another for Rishid, even one less dear, who could have something he could not, even if that was only meaningless sex – unthinkable.

Other Bakura – he'd slipped into thinking just "Bakura", hadn't he? – was good for personal epiphanies, apparently.

But could you really _mention_ missing someone when, bare a short apology afterwards, your relationship has consisted of hanging out in his very mind without his permission and using him as a hostage?

"I'm sorry," Bakura – this one, of course – added, after briefly glancing up, "to intrude on you like this. If you want me to find another place to stay, I will. Oh, and I'd pay rent, of course. I can cook too." He trailed off.

"Well." Malik went to sit down as well, on the chair on the other side of the table. "It's not going to be easy, but we can manage. We'll put a mattress in the bedroom. If Rishid agrees," he added, belatedly.

"That's very kind of you," Bakura said, and smiled up at him, looking as goofy as Malik remembered; he'd given little thought to it at the time, but now he felt something inside him melt.

* * *

><p>The thief's solution to the apparent problem was to tie his former host to the bed.<p>

At least that was how Malik interpreted it: Bakura – the original, no, wait, the old, the thief one – was terrified of the idea of his host being around without being under his control. Possibly it was a kind of love; Malik wasn't sure what measure to apply to someone like Bakura.

The point was, the logical conclusion was to tear up an old linen sheet and tie other Bakura's wrists to the bed's headboard. Other Bakura strained against the ties, but voiced no complaint; he'd been cooperative, and looked rather happy. Malik was sure if it had involved other people this might have been an adorable setup.

He was watching the scene from the door. Bakura turned to wave at him.

"Come in," he said.

Malik obeyed; they'd done this before, of course; magic binding the host's limbs, magic cutting off the air, magic pushing at each other, between a caress and an attack. Odd, that he hadn't really missed it with Bakura; but what they had now was better, actually, the scale of combat and sex tipped to the other side.

He climbed up unto the bed, next to the thief, and caressed down the inside of the host's arm, which, he remembered, was sensitive.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, even while burying a hand in the soft white hair.

He didn't mean here and now; he meant: tomorrow, and the day after, and after and after. He realised that he had never believed that Bakura was going to stay until now.

Other Bakura bit his lips and managed a faint nod, his checks colouring.

"You're embarrassing him," Bakura informed him, meanly amused. "Go on."

"Shut up," Malik snapped, and buried his face in the hair to escape Bakura's smirk.

"It's n –"

Bakura broke off when there was a sound from outside; a moment later, the door flew open; Malik didn't even look up, and missed what he was sure must have been an interesting look on Rishid's face. Bakura let himself fall back onto the bed, laughing now.

"We'll need a larger bed," he said; Malik finally raised his head to swat him with a pillow.

* * *

><p>When he came back into the bedroom with Rishid, after a short, inconclusive conversation where he'd made his own desire too clear for Rishid to deny it, he found both Bakuras shirtless and untied; Bakura was kneeling behind his former host, arms drawn around him.<p>

"Hi," aforementioned former host said softly, looking at Rishid. "I'm Bakura. Ryou," he added. "Bakura Ryou."

"_I'm_ Bakura," Bakura insisted, leaning forward; and that was new; the thief hadn't cared before. "Just Ryou."

'Ryou' frowned in answer but didn't contradict.

"Rishid Ishtar," Rishid said, his voice even; Malik was certain he was the only one to catch the incertitude in his stance and voice; he wondered whether Rishid felt any guilt on Ryou's account.

Bakura's eyes seemed to glitter.

"Kiss him," he said.

Both Malik and Rishid stood frozen as, in answer, Ryou obediently rose from the bed. Then Rishid turned his head to Malik, and Malik moved towards to him. But it was Bakura he was looking at, while Ryou walked forward as on a string, and Malik knew he _shouldn't_, shouldn't even _want_...

"I don't mind," he said, his mouth close to Rishid's ear, though his eyes were still locked with Bakura's. "You can leave."

On the bed, Bakura smirked at him, though he couldn't have heard his words; and maybe Malik had been successful in detaching Rishid from himself just a little, because now he could almost feel the rod's power glister around him.

Ryou came to stand in front of Rishid, looking uncertain but oddly careless about it; Malik watched, mesmerised, as Rishid leant down over him, and they exchanged a few quick, light kisses. In an instant, the jealousy was back; he could almost taste the feel of their lips touching, strong and soft, and trembling... He glanced back at Bakura, who stared back fixedly, eyes dark.

He almost forgot that he needed to physically move to drag Ryou away, but he did, capturing his arms and dragging him backwards to the bed, and telling Rishid to follow with his eyes alone; Rishid looked a little sad, almost, but his eyes narrowed when they fell on Bakura, who moved towards him as soon as he was in reach, and whom Rishid violently pinned back down onto the bed.

"What would it take for _you_to split and let your hate run free?" Bakura hissed up at him; the grip Rishid had on his wrists must be painful.

"Hey," Ryou, who had landed on Malik's lap as they'd reached the bed, said, calling his attention, fascinated by the way Rishid leant lower when Bakura bucked up beneath him, away from the two of them.

Malik was tempted to interfere still; nothing could be more infuriating than the thought that there might be parts of Rishid he didn't know, desires he couldn't satisfy; but being the one who had dragged him to this, maybe he had no real right to deny him now...

And then, Ryou, who was turning round on his lap, legs on either side of his, and smiling up at him, was really difficult to ignore; Malik dragged down his head and crushed their lips together.

* * *

><p>In the early morning of the next day, he came into the kitchen to find Ryou and Rishid chatting away.<p>

"– always used watercolours for those too," Ryou was saying when Malik walked in.

They were both standing by the stove, their backs to him; Bakura was sitting on the only chair, by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, and looking morose.

"Doesn't the wood shine through?" Rishid asked.

"I've never really minded. Here, try again."

"Malik," Bakura said, glancing up at him, even as Ryou exclaimed, happily: "Almost!"

Ryou whirled round, and Rishid looked up briefly too, after putting back down the pan.

"Hi!" Ryou said, giving a brief, silly wave of the hand. "We're making pancakes!" Malik must have looked nonplussed, because he added: "You know, American breakfast. I think?" He turned back to the stove.

"It's four of clock in the morning," Malik pointed out.

"We went to bed early," Ryou said, without looking round. "And we're all up now. Hey –" (he turned) "– Bakura, can you pass me the sugar? It's right behind you."

"_No_," Bakura said.

Ryou heaved a sigh and went to get it himself, from a shelf nailed to the wall. Meanwhile, Rishid too had turned, and was now looking at Malik as if an askance; Malik smiled faintly to signify that, as far as he was concerned, everything was fine.

* * *

><p>"You should put up some of Rishid's paintings," Ryou said later, when they were back in the living room eating together. "They're great!"<p>

"We were planning too," Malik said, a bit guiltily; they had talked about it; but truth be told, Rishid's paintings made him a little uncomfortable, as if they somehow contained hidden reproaches. And then there had been the one that, however abstract, had made Malik think of the pharaoh, colour-wise; they'd gifted Isis with that one.

His brother had never painted before; but maybe Malik shouldn't have been surprised that he had talent; at the very least, you had to have a pretty steady hand to manage to carve perfect, legible writing onto your own face.

"Then why haven't you?" Bakura threw in.

"We haven't found time yet," Rishid said calmly; he and Bakura glared at each other from across the table.

"So, what are you going to do?" Malik asked Ryou.

"Oh." Ryou glanced at Bakura, but the former spirit was ignoring him. "I'll move in properly, if that's okay with you."

"And then?" Rishid asked, turning away from Bakura and towards the one next to him on the couch.

"Enrol in a local school?" Ryou said, shrugging. "Look for a job?"

Clearly, Malik figured, he hadn't thought farther than _go and find the lost soul-thief_ when he'd travelled all across the country.

"Does Yuugi know you're here?" he asked.

"Uhm," Ryou said.

Bakura slowly turned away from Rishid to glare at him instead.

"Did you _tell_ him about me?"

"He had a right to know," Ryou snapped back. "And you were just _gone_."

Bakura gave no answer; he simply stood up, tipping over the chair as he did, and left the room.

"Those pancakes are pretty good," Malik said into following silence; the other two gave him weird looks.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure I can leave you people alone?" Malik had asked when leaving first; he meant the two Bakuras, mostly, but he wondered about Rishid too; how had <em>he<em> become the sensible one?

Bakura had briefly forsaken his foul mood to smirk at him, and in a way it was nice to know he could still draw that from him; Rishid and Ryou had assured him that he could; and Malik had to be content with that.

He came back, in the afternoon, to find Rishid home early, and sitting across of Bakura in the living room, Duel Monster cards spread out before them; they were duelling. That was a surprise; Rishid hadn't taken out his cards since Battle City, and hadn't seemed interested at all when Malik had asked him if he wanted to enter tournaments. And the thought of Bakura ever playing without magic to back him up had certainly never entered Malik's mind.

A quick look on the piece of paper where they wrote down the score showed that Bakura was losing. That didn't have to mean much; he had whole strategies build on losing life points; but Malik also knew that his brother was not one who'd be fooled into attacking blindly. The thief hid his cards when Malik tried to see them over his shoulder.

"Do you need anything?" Rishid asked him, glancing up from his own cards; how had Malik not noticed, for years and years, the way Rishid could make him feel welcome with a mere look?

Malik just waved that away, and left them to it; it seemed like a peaceful enough way for the two of them to work through their antagonism. He went on to the bedroom, where he found Ryou, on a new mattress that was laid out between the wall and the bed, naked, and artily tied up with silky black rope; arms crossed and immobilised behind his back, ankles tied to the base of his legs.

"Hi," Malik said, staring at him; it was hard not to.

"Oh." Ryou craned his neck to turn and look at him. "Hi!" He gave him a sunny smile; good enough Malik figured, and went to get a change of clothes from the wardrobe. "How was your day?"

"Good," Malik said; often his work was frustrating; but there were days when he felt like this was exactly what he had always wanted from life. "How was yours?"

"Boring," Ryou admitted, and struggled to sit up to his knees. "Are you hungry? I looked up a new vegetarian recipe, I'd like to try it out."

"M-hm," Malik made, just as Bakura walked in. "How did your game go?" Malik asked him, even while taking off his shirt.

"Your – Rishid won," Bakura said, stopping in front of the mattress; Malik couldn't tell whether his indifference was genuine or not. "He's good."

"I know," Malik said; he went to stand behind Bakura and buried a hand in his hair, tugging; oddly, Ryou alone had not stirred much desire in him; the sight of the two of them, however, facing each other like this... "I didn't know you even still had cards."

"Ryou brought our deck," Bakura answered, his voice a little strained as he gave way to Malik's pressure, letting him bent his head backwards. Over his shoulder, Malik could see Ryou's eyes go clouded.

* * *

><p>Ryou moved in, with clothes and books that ended up scattered across the bedroom floor and a laptop that Malik promptly hogged for three days straight, going through Ryou's horror game collection. They didn't buy a larger bed; they made do with the mattress, and Bakura slept at odd hours anyway.<p>

They played four-way duels, and a few of Ryou's role-playing games, and had complicated, inventive sex. They had a picnic in a nearby park; they put up Rishid's paintings. Bakura vanished for whole nights and came back home with a satisfied air that made Ryou and Malik go through the local newspaper with worry.

Malik wasn't sure what Rishid was thinking about it; they still had their evening conferences, but Malik didn't like to bring up Bakura. Somehow, the thief's relationship with Rishid stirred up the fact in Malik's mind that Rishid might have hated and resented him instead of loving and serving him. And maybe that shouldn't matter; but he wasn't prepared to deal with it.

Only Rishid stirred when Malik sat up on the bed that afternoon, drawing his legs to his body; they were crammed together, no space to move; next to him, Bakura's usually so responsive body was heavy with sleep. The thief had bite-marks on his neck, a consequence, Malik guessed, of the faint smell of gasoline that Ryou too had found lingering over him. Now, Ryou, who shared some of Bakura's odd sleep patterns, was asleep as well, his arms peacefully drawn around the thief, head resting on his shoulder.

Rishid, in his other side, raised his head.

"Anything –"

Malik shock his head, cutting him off. He stood up himself instead, grabbing his discarded clothes on the way. By the door he stopped and looked back; they'd drawn the blinds shut and opened the windows, warm spring air pouring in, and Malik could see the three bodies by the faint dots of light sprinkled over them; Rishid had moved to fill the space he had vacated. Malik felt no wish to disturb the picture; instead he smiled faintly, turned, and made his way towards the kitchen.

* * *

><p>The End<p>

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><p><em>Reviews are always appreciated! ;)<em>


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